Clotted cream is so easy to make at home. Please don’t think that I’m saying that clotted cream is only easy for experienced bakers to make. Clotted cream is really easy for ANYONE to make, regardless of your kitchen expertise. You dump cream in a pot and put it in the oven. When it emerges, you have clotted cream. It’s like magic!!

What is Clotted Cream? Aren’t Clots a Bad Thing?

If you are in the United States and have never heard of clotted cream, don’t feel bad. I hadn’t heard of clotted cream until a visit to a local restaurant, The London Tea Room. Clotted cream is a topping typically served on scones at high tea. I think of it as a cross between butter and whipped cream.

UPDATE (01/15/10): Reader Marian sent me this important correction:

I looked at their [The London Tea Room] site. They offer AFTERNOON TEA and CREAM TEA, not HIGH tea, which is a totally different animal. Don’t feel bad — most Americans don’t know the difference, including (alas!) some tea rooms. The first two are white collar experiences; a high tea is a blue collar meal, probably no scones at all, but a variety of meat dishes, puddings, cakes, etc — VERY filling, and designed to satisfy the factory worker or farm laborer as soon as he gets home and is too hungry to wait for the fashionable dinner hour of 8 pm.

How Did This Clotted Cream Recipe Compare to Store-Bought Clotted Cream?

I bought some English Luxury Clotted Cream and tasted mine alongside it. The texture was the same (like butter, but a bit creamier), however mine had a slightly sweeter, much fresher, and richer flavor. It was worlds better. There may be really amazing store-bought clotted cream options out there, but they are not readily available in St. Louis. The quality of your clotted cream, however, will depend on the quality of your heavy whipping cream, which brings me to my next section…

The Difficult Parts of Making Clotted Cream

There are two difficult parts to this clotted cream recipe:

Finding heavy whipping cream that isn’t ultra-pasteurized. Clotting will work better with an unpasteurized or pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) cream. I didn’t try making the recipe with an ultra-pasteurized cream so I can’t say for sure whether or not it would work, but I suspect it wouldn’t work well. For more information on ultra-pasteurization, check out the FAQ from the New England Cheese Making Society (I know we aren’t making cheese here, but the information found there is very helpful in explaining the problem with ultra-pasteurization). It is also best to look for heavy whipping cream with as high a fat content as you can find. I used a local brand, Pevely, that had 40% fat.

Waiting. The clotted cream was in my oven for so long that it shut itself off. This has never happened before, and I learned from the experience that our oven shuts off automatically at twelve hours.

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You can store the clotted cream in any sealed container. But, it’s always helpful to have some tall mason jars around.

Clotted Cream Recipe

I got the recipe for clotted cream from Sustainable Table. As I said above, there isn’t much to it. There is only one ingredient: heavy whipping cream. Use as much as you would like. I used two pints (4 cups) – be sure to see my notes above about about not using ultra-pasteurized cream. The clotted cream can be stored in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. Use it to top scones, pancakes, toast, or in my case, high tea cupcakes (post coming soon).

Pour the cream into a heavy-bottomed oven-safe pot. The cream should come up the side of the pot somewhere between one and three inches.

Cover the pot and put it in the oven on 180 F.

Leave the covered pot in the oven for at least 8 hours. My four cups took 12 hours (until my oven automatically turned off). You’ll know it’s done because there will be a thick yellowish skin above the cream, as shown above. That skin is the clotted cream.

Let the pot cool at room temperature, then put it in the refrigerator for another 8 hours.

Remove the clotted cream from the top of the pot. The cream that is underneath it can still be used for baking.

Yes it can, thats how we make ours.
Put the heavy cream in a flat dish, fill up to an inch or so up the side. Set the lowest heat, Check after 3 hrs. PS put the dish in the slow cooker, add a little water to to outside of the dish.

In Hungary we don’t have it, either. We tried it when we first went to England and tried to get one here in Hungary but couldn’t find. We always eat clotted cream with scones when we go to England, it might be the best invention of the world. :)

OMG(as the kids say) your clotted cream post brought back really delicious memories. I went to culinary school in London and haven’t had clotted cream since I lived there (mmm scones…)By the way I’ve been a fan of your blog since you did an interview with Kathy of vere chocolate (where I was the chocolatier). I loved the vere inspired raspberry cupcakes with lemon & chocolate that you made!

I tried making it a couple of times at home but it never seems to come out right. I used to eat it a lot when I did my grad school in England.

It’s funny, I went shopping yesterday to Fresh Farms super market which is located in Chicago on Devon st and they were sampling it there. The gentlemen that was sampling it said that different nationalities call the cream by different names. They had it spread on bread, some with honey and some with strawberry jelly. I bought a plate of the cream and am going to buy scones. This brings back a lot of memories. The company that makes it has a website, http://www.atourfoods.com.

I’ve always wondered what clotted cream was and now I know. I’m eager to try making it. However:

I’m a little embarrassed to admit this…I found step 5 to be confusing until I read other clotted cream articles. At first I thought perhaps you meant that you should skim off the thick top skin and discard it and use the rest. But now I realize that there is a liquid part left at the bottom and the thick clotted cream is only on the top. You didn’t mention that it separated so I expected the whole thing to have thickened and was confused when you said to remove the top part.

Maybe you could add a bit more explanation in step 5 for us clotted cream dummies?

Im in St. Louis also, and have just recently started my food blogging experience. Is Pevely whipping cream unpasteurized? Also, the cream that is left at the bottom, is that considered heavy whipping cream still, or has it chemically changed and be considered something else? http://www.oneilslab.wordpress.com – The Lab – An Experiment to TasteSt. Charles!

I tried doing this in a slow cooker and I think it worked. I’ve never had the real thing, but it did look like the picture above and it tasted great. I tried it twice using two different methods. I put 4 C. cream in a crockpot on the 10 hour setting (I don’t know what temp that is) and after two hours it had formed a layer on the top (it was a little brown on the very edge so I didn’t use that little bit). I turned it off and took out the inner pot to let it cool. I then put it in the fridge for 10 hours. A nice thick layer had formed on the top and I skimmed it off and used it. It made about a cup of clotted cream. The rest of the cream had thickened a little too with this method, however. I tried it again with 4 C. cream (the kind you talk about using in your recipe) and put the cooker on the warm (or auto) setting-the setting it normally switches to when it is done cooking). It took longer than 12 hours for the whole top to form a thin layer. After cooling it did not produce as much as the previous attempt, but the rest of the cream under the layer was the normal consistency.

Hiyas Just watched a programe on clotted cream the woman making it was from Devon England she sells her butter and cream. She makes her cream by simmering it in a water bath on the hob and not in the oven. Also noticed alot of questions about which part of the cream is used over here in the uk we use the top as well as the underneath it should all thicken up and be able to be used. Especially nice with fruit scones and jam!

I made this Tuesday while I was at work. I actually cooked the whipping cream for 11 hours and I had a hard time finding the right type of cream. I then made scones the following morning and we had them, warm, with the cream. I can’t wait to make this again! Thank you. The first time I had clotted cream was last summer at a tea room with a friend. We didn’t even know what it was, but we couldn’t stop eating it!

To be honest, it’s not even remotely close to proper clotted cream, (maybe an inferior substance that is marketed as such by a supermarket) but a nice substitute if you can’t get the real thing – which is actually made from full fat milk and not cream at all.One minor gripe, is that ‘real’ clotted cream is not a ‘branded’ item and just because it comes from the UK does not make it so. We have a number of those and most of them pretty dire.Thanks for the recipe though, it did make a stout cream and even had a light crust, which well with fresh strawberries.

We are aware lol. The problem comes in that most places in the US you can not buy full fat unpasteurized milk. Almost all full fat milk commercial here is ultra pasteurized which destroys the butterfat/cream which is why we are using regular pasteurized whipping cream. If we took full fat milk from the store here and tried to make clotted cream with it nothing would happen except possibly getting some regular cream out of it but not likely even then, mostly just cooked milk.

Thanks for posting this recipe. I have access to full-fat unpasteurized cream from a farm, and have been looking for a way to duplicate the clotted cream I had at a tea room once. I bought a jar of “Devon cream” from a store (for $8) but have wanted to try making it myself. However, I know that different cows make different “flavors” of milk (thus, cream, cheese, yogurt, etc.) so we’ll have to see how it tastes. I haven’t been thrilled with the way my butter tastes compared to store butter.

If you’re getting your dairy from a farm none of it will taste like store bought stuff. That farm probably pastures their cows. They get a lot of grass and maybe in the winter some oats too.

The dairy you buy at the store comes from cows that are fed feed. Probably lots of corn because it’s cheap. So it is going to taste different. I loved the butter I had in Germany because their cows are grass fed. Their sweet butter is awesome and I can’t get anything that tastes like that here. Probably different breeds of cows too.

But your dairy from that farm will make healthy butter, cheese, milk and clotted cream. (If there is such a thing as healthy clotted cream, lol.) If you’re making butter, you’re making “sweet” butter unless you are adding salt. Sweet butter tastes different than salted butter and takes some getting used to.

If you have an opportunity to buy meat or eggs from that farm, I’d do that too. Local is always better and knowing your source is the best. They probably raise their animals on healthy food their animals were designed to eat (cows were not designed to eat corn) and they treat them humanely. That makes all the difference.

Thanks for posting this, I might have a go! I make scones regularly – they go down very well with my Dutch in-laws who are unaccustomed to home baking as ovens are only just making it into Dutch kitchens. Most traditional dutch cooking is done on top of the stove (I hesitate to use the word ‘cuisine’ as I don’t think it merits it).

I will get around to completing my food blog and posting my scone recipe on it at some point. I also want to address the great Raising Agent debate. which is better, baking powder or 2:1 bicarbonate of soda to Cream of Tartar? I mix my own, every time. I can always taste baking powder in the finished product, I’m not sure why.

And I’m pleased to report that I managed to notice your temperature was Fahrenheit before a terrible accident happened. There’s me, a silly old European, thinking “180C? I could cook a chicken at that heat!”

Other silly old Europeans reading this blog might like to note that 180F is 82.22222 Celsius.

I found a recipe for clotted cream that does not involve the oven. You basically put the lightly pasteurized cream into a coffee filter above a bowl over night. What is left in the filter is the clotted cream. I have never been able to find lightly pasteurized cream before so I have never had a chance to try this.

Crock pot temperatures vary due to many variables (see article at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080109140202AAfyGME). However, I grew up knowing most crock pots are about 180 deg F (low) and 200 deg F (high). Remember, a crock pot is a slow cooker, not designed to cook fast, which means a lower temp. The comment above (and the first 1 on the above page) suggesting 200 (low) and 300 (high) are erroneous.

I am in my seventies, but when I was a child in New Zealand my relatives, who lived on a dairy farm, used to make clotted cream every day. All that they did was to put a huge iron pot full of their rich jersey milk, onto the fuel stove at a low temperature and leave overnight. The thickened cream would rise to the top and be scooped off to be eaten with fresh bread and jam at breakfast.

This may be way too late for you Gabrielle as it is now 2013. I live in NZ and have just had a holiday in Cornwall ,England and so enjoyed the clotted cream which I cannot seem to buy in NZ so looked up this sight. I was pleased to read your comment. So you still live in NZ?

Gabrielle. I am also in my 70s and remember my grandmother having clotted cream. I have been trying to find out how she made it and I think that it would have been the way that you have said. I am in Australia and she came from a farm in Tasmania. But when I remember the clotted cream she waS IN A SUBURB OF Melbourne. I am just wondering how I would go about making it now. I think I would have to make it from cream and not milk as the milk I buy from the shop has not much cream at all.

@ #8“To be honest, it’s not even remotely close to proper clotted cream, (maybe an inferior substance that is marketed as such by a supermarket)…”

This is indeed a real clotted cream. It is only made a little differently. The way it is normally made is by heating up the full fat milk, causing the cream float to the top, which then forms clots after sitting for several hours. She is merely taking the cream by itself, heating it up, and allowing it to form clots.

Amen, I felt equally miffed by that arrogant comment. It is worth noting that what some people call clotted cream, is different to what others think of it. The difference is also reflected in the way they make it. Simple really. The Devon manufacturers who have a video on Youtube, show how they make it on a large scale, so it stands to reason, home varieties will be different, at least to some degree.

I read it as the stuff you buy in the store in a glass jar isn’t really the real thing. The “marketed by the supermarket” part is what led me to interpret the statement this way.

Buying the stuff in a jar is a “nice substitute if you can’t get the real thing” also led me to believe this is what the poster meant.

Whether making it from cream or whole unpastuerized milk (which I can get at my local organic market) will always be better than those little jars of “clotted cream” for the same reason making your own ketchup or cocktail sauce or mozzarella is better than buying the store stuff. Anything you can make in your kitchen (like mayonnaise) is going to be better than what you buy in the store.

Thanks for the recipe. I am making “tea” gift baskets for Christmas this year and a jar of homemade clotted cream will be a unique item to add. In spite of the real vs not real clotted cream debate, this tastes great and I’m certain everyone will enjoy it.

I’m so glad to find this recipe, as I’ve been dreaming (literally) of making my own clotted cream and scones (pronounced ‘scuns’ as far as I’ve been told? ) I’ve had it before, I believe we ordered it from king arthur’s bakery and fell in love with it. Here in Idaho I’ve only found it one place for $3 an ounce. Yikes! One ounce is not anywhere enough for one person let alone my family of 6. I will be trying this as soon as I make it to the store to buy cream! thank you!

I am Australian and have tasted clotted cream whilst on holiday in England and the recipe from England who originated the recipe has two ingredients of 700ml double cream and 25gram of butter. These two ingredients are is also used in butter cake which is one of the world’s dreamy tasty cake.

So I think it is possible that your printed clotted cream recipe needs 25gram of butter added to it and prepare the same as in your article.Hannahe

You can buy unpasturized cream at local farmer’s markets. They sell raw milk and raw cream. When you heat it at 180 degrees it will be safe to eat. It is already safe if purchased from a reputable local farmer, even though it is labled “Pet Quality – not for human consumption.

Its listed as pet quality because it is illegal in the US to buy or sell raw milk the only legal way to get “human consumption” raw milk/cream is to have a diary co-op. So basically they just put pet quality to get around the law, and yay for them lol.

I picked up unpasteurized cream from a local dairy, but it was very small, so I didn’t have enough to bake it in a pot/small pan. I’m trying this out in a muffin pan instead. Should I cut the baking time i half for that?

It’s interesting to see all the comments which refer to clotted cream as a uniquely British delicacy. Not that long ago it was an American staple. My Dad grew up in rural north Louisiana in the late 1940’s. Most families with children owned a cow for the milk and Dad’s daily chore was milking. His mother would put the whole milk up to separate to make drinking milk, cream, butter and buttermilk. The trick was to keep my aunt out of the house until Granny was done – otherwise someone would steal the clotted cream to eat it with a spoon :) Then no one else could have it on their breakfast cereal or biscuits. I’m told that several hickory switches were involved in discouraging her but it was the thought of not fitting into her prom dress that finally ended the thievery.

Vivaine3, I’ve lived in Louisiana my whole life, so it was a pleasant surprise to read your comment and see that your dad was from Lousiana, too. I’m about to try making clotted cream so I’m hoping it’s a success, especially since I’ve always wanted to try it.

I have had no experience with clotted cream, but wanted to try this for a tea party I’m having in a couple of days. Since I couldn’t find any heavy cream except ultrapasteurized, I stirred 1/3 c. Fage (my favorite Greek yogurt) and 1/4 c. kefir — both plain nonfat — into 4 cups cream 2-3 days before baking. When 8 hrs. baking time had elapsed, the cream didn’t look quite done but I needed to go to bed. So I turned off the oven leaving the cream pot inside. The next day I continued with refrigerating. To my surprise almost all the cream solidified, though the consistency was softer than cream cheese. Not quite sure what to expect. It is delicious!

The addition of yogurt and kefir became a mute point once the temp exceeded 120F. Milk kefir is mesophilic, 70-75F and dies off as you hit 90F and 105F. Fage is thermophilic and dies off beyond 118F. So the cultured cream ultimately became curd in the oven, you could have simply heated the cultured cream on the stove at that point to 180F, rapid chill and strained off the whey. A tasty creamy soft cheese.

What you made was essentially a basic form of cultured cream. The 2 easily available forms of lactoculture are thermophilic (yoghurt) and mesophilic (buttermilk). I made creme fraiche out of buttermilk and UP cream the 1st batch and used some of each for a starter for the next for endless batches. You used yoghurt type bacteria, I’d imagine it got pretty thick? Prolly very tasty. Try doing the same then adding 25% fresh cream after culturing then chill, to reduce tang and add freshness

Another great way to do clotted cream is to use whatever your favorite method w/raw cream. Once made pack into 4oz canning jars and sterilize under boiling water. This way it can be kept in the fridge for quite a while. I’ve done this w/fresh spring cream and it was better months later than stuff from grocery store cream made fresh. Notice the stuff in stores often has dates for long times or none at all…

Hi there, Thanks for posting this! I am planning to try it myself as I have an overabundance of heavy cream thanks to bulk shopping. I just wanted to add that one of the big differences (and I’d argue there are many, but this is the biggie) between American and British scones is the sweetness. American scones are much, much sweeter than what you will find in the UK. If you’re going to add jam and clotted or Devonshire cream, you might want to use a less sweet recipe. I use one from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution cookbook (sorry it’s not available to link) and usually just throw in extra fruit or even (shocking I know) a handful of chocolate chips if I’m not going to be otherwise dressing them up with other goodies. Just my $.02 – thanks!

I just made clotted cream with ULTRA pasteurized whipping cream. I was unable to find the non/lightly pasteurized kind so I thought I’d take a chance. IT WORKED! I had to use the full 12 hours (originally put it in the oven for 8 and then added 4 more when it didn’t look right). Using it this morning w/ my scones to watch the DVR-ed Royal Wedding.Thanks for the recipe! Can’t wait to taste it on the scones!

Clotted Cream – I never thought that I would come across this on a website so long after I used to enjoy it.

I spent a number of years living in Plymouth Devon UK in the late 1960’s when I was a cash strapped student. One of life’s small luxuries for me and my wife was to enjoy scones, strawberry jam and clotted cream – lots – at a small local restaurant in Cornwall Street.

I tried this for the first time, using Pevely’s 40% fat heavy whipping cream. I followed the directions, putting it in a 180 degree oven. However, at 12 hours, it was still completely liquidy. I continued to monitor it, but even at 24 hours it was all liquid–no thick, yellow layer on top. I went ahead and cooled, then refrigerated it. This morning, it is thick, but I’m wondering if the taste if right, as it doesn’t taste like what I recently had in England. I guess I’ll try again, cooking it for less time, but am wondering if anyone else has had this experience?

My husband and I just returned from a two-week stay in Kent with his folks and we treated ourselves to a cream tea just about every day. We knew we weren’t going to find the wonderful clotted cream where we lived stateside so we lived it up! Imagine my delight when googling “how to make clotted cream” and stumbling upon your blog.

We’re down for this challenge! I think we might go with the slow cooker idea since it’s been tested and seems to work. I’m so very excited!

I’m thrilled to say using the slow cooker idea worked for me. The end result was a bit stiffer than what we’ve had in England but the taste is virtually identical.

I used two pints of 40% fat heavy whipping cream – pasteurized (not ultra) that I found at Trader Joe’s.

I set the cooker (Hamilton Beach Set & Forget purchased specifically to try this recipe) to low and in about four hours the concoction started to bubble a bit but there was a yellow-tinted skin on the top layer as described in the recipe so I shut the cooker off. I let the cream cool to room temp and then stuck it in the fridge.

It was in the fridge for probably 10-12 hours. I skimmed off the clotted top layer et voila!

My husband and I celebrated with clotted cream and French jam on croissants (another slight deviation from a cream tea but quicker than baking up a batch of biscuits).

I used the rice cooker for this. Poured in cream, set the cooker on warm for 12 hours, went to bed. In the morning I removed the inner bowl, covered it, put in fridge and went to work. When I returned home in the evening, the cream had set and was delicious. Make while asleep and at work? What could be easier? Oops, there goes my diet.

This took me back to the early seventies when I was a stewardess for Pan Am. We usually had clotted cream with scones and jam on our London flights. I just loved it and was in luck since it was not particularly popular with our American passengers. Never knew how to make it til now, (thanks) but once I mistakenly left a quart of heavy cream out overnight and then stuck it back in the refrigerator worrying that it would probably sour. I was amazed to find that it simply thickened and remained fresh. It was not as thick as I remember clotted cream, but was much heavier than whipped cream and quite delicious with fresh strawberries. Pam

Thanks for posting the recipe. I just yesterday returned from 2 weeks in Devon and Cornwall where I had a cream tea for breakfast almost every day. I just emailed a brand (Roddah’s) in Cornwall who ship the stuff world wide but I am going to try your recipe too.

Who gives a rats Anon?? English, Scottish and Irish have been eating scones forever, so does the origin really matter? The UK is an OLD nation, and the truth is the original flour/water/milk concoction, could have come from anywhere.

I’m assuming the clotted cream need refridgeration after it’s done…..does anyone know of a way to preserve it that would allow it to be gifted with baskets that might not be kept cool? I’m thinking glass jars/heat sealed…..but if someone knows a process, please share!

I live in India and I have never tasted the much talked about british clotted cream. But from all my research on it, it seems like there is a big fuss about what is an everyday bi-product of milk here in India. We call it Malai. Never having tasted devonshire cream, I am not sure if that is what it is. So i am going to give you a real simple recipe here, I’d appreciate it if you could try it and respond on how it compares to clotted cream.

Here goes…In india we boil milk before drinking or using it in food, always! Doesn’t matter if it is pasteurized…boiling is tradition! And when you boil milk you always get Malai (or what i think is clotted cream).

So take a gallon of full fat milk (oragnic is better but any kind is fine if it is full fat)…put it in a large pan ( a deep, narrow pan is better for a thicker layer and simply give it a boil on your stove top. Don’t Let it boil over, take it off the heat as soon as it comes to a full boil.

Now leave it outside to cool, don’t move it too much. Once it reaches room temperature, you’ll see a thin layer of skin forming on top. Without disturbing the layer, just put the whole thing in the fridge. You can leave it in the fridge overnight. In the morning the layer of skin would’ve thickened. It’ll keep thickening in the fridge to a point. Once it is not thickening anymore, just take it off the milk. This layer should be what you call clotted cream. The rewmaining milk can be boiled again to give you more of the clotted layer. Or you can just use the milk to drink or cook as usual. Boiling milk also increases its shelf life.

Please let me know how this turns out, I need to know if Malai is indeed clotted cream. :)

Way late but Malai is not clotted cream ,that is just whipping cream or heavy cream. Which is what you would cook in the oven to make clotted cream. My grandmother lived on a far her entire life with cows and she always pasturized her own milk from the cows. This is the same process she used to seperate the heavy cream from the milk.

The Indian lady I drive to church does the same thing with the raw milk I bring to her. She has always referred to it as clotted cream. She also said that if you cook out the protein before it goes bad, you’ll have ghee or clarified butter.

This is almost exactly how my grandmother told me her mother (a farmers wife) made clotted cream. In her case the milk came warm from the cow (and the house cow was always a Jersey or Guernsey – because the milk was so rich.

The only difference was the refridgeration. Few farmhouses in the 1890s had ‘fridges but the dairy was always the coolest place on the farm

Hi, I am a Canadian and living in the north West of England….You must remenber that the word ”the” is also used for whatwe call supper, supper his use for what we call midnight or late night snak. I took me at least 3 years to figure it out.

I am from India too and crave malai like crazy :)..Clotted /Devonshire is like malai that’s 2-3 old when it starts to get that buttery taste.I am going to try boiling whipping cream and hopefully that would be close to fresh malai. It is next to impossible to get malai/cream from milk in US as it has only 4% fat. With all due to respect, US doesn’t know what it is missing with no full fat milk,cream, butter.

If you live on a farm with cows or can get your hands on “Raw” milk from a farm/farmers market. You can make malai otherwise known as “real” heavy cream. And no they dont know what their missing, most americans have never even tasted raw milk, butter, cream, etc……not this is not a ding on americans i am american i just had the benefit of practically growing up on my grandmas dairy farm.

I tried clotted cream when I went to London in 1991…I’ve been trying to find it here in the US ever since! I’m definitely going to try this recipe…maybe in the crock pot. The rice cooker method is interesting, too! I’m also interested to know if it can be canned in jars.

I am italian and I’ve been in Cornwall recently. I can suggest you to try mascarpone cheese (usually used to cook the famous tiramisù) as substitute of devon cream, it’s very similar and easier to find than unpastorized milk.

As an FYI – your oven probably has a ‘Shabbat’ or ‘Shabbos’ setting that allows you to override the auto-shutoff and keep the oven on for longer periods of time. Some will let you determine the temp and others have a single setting – but that setting would be fairly low (close to 180-200)

I am one of those poor Americans who is really missing out on clotted cream. I studied abroad last year in England and discovered how amazing it is. Thank you for posting this recipe. Can’t wait to make it!

OK! I made this! I live in FL and unless you go to a farm, you can’t find anything but ultra-pasteurized heavy cream, so that’s what I used. I don’t own any oven-save pots, so I put 1 qt of cream into a glass bread pan, which came about 2″ up the side; I left it uncovered and put it in my oven, set just below the 200F mark. It took about 13-14 hours; I pulled it out before I went to bed. The top skin was slightly yellow, and sort of hard, but I could see the liquid separated at the bottom so I figured it was done and stuck it in the fridge. This morning, it looked pretty firm in the fridge, so I dug in with a spoon to see. The top crust is hard, but not crispy, and attached to that there was a 1cm-ish thick white cream, and looots of runny cream underneath, which looks just like regular heavy cream, so I will just re-use it as such. I think the more surface area you give the cream to cook, the more clotted cream you will get, and I won’t build it up so high next time I make it.

Now for the taste…I have never had clotted cream before, or anything akin to it, so I have nothing to compare it to. The flavor is good, it tastes like cream basically, and then I chewed, and it was basically like eating a very smooth/soft unsalted sweet cream butter….I don’t know if that’s the way it was SUPPOSED to be or what…I definitely would NOT eat it as-is, but I can see how it would be good on a scone or other sweet biscuit. I’m going to serve it on a marmalade treacle tart today and we shall see how it is then!

Lovely post, thank you for sharing! I’ve always made clotted cream on the counter overnight in a jar with a cup of buttermilk, a couple of tablespoons of fresh lemon juice and a couple of tablespoons of sugar (cause I like it a little sweet) – but I didn’t know you were supposed to heat it. Actually, I think I’ve been making creme fraiche and didn’t know it. Not really sure of the difference. :) Ha! Anywho, I’ll try yours. It sounds divine! :)

Thanks for this post and all the comments! I just returned to the US from a week in London, where I had clotted cream for the first time. It was just delicious. I am checking to see if any of the stores in my area sell it… perhaps the natural foods grocery… but I know I haven’t seen it before, so I doubt it. I’ll be trying to make it if I can’t find it. I’d like to treat my kids to a little taste of what I had while I visited there, and this is probably the one they’d most enjoy.

As for questions about the taste… I thought it was the consistency of butter, but instead of tasting like unsweetened butter, it tasted like heavy cream. Think of sipping a spoonful of heavy cream- and then think of eating a spoonful of solidified heavy cream. There you go.

Lovely thread here. Linking the clotted cream with the Indian malai, would be what my mother, from Sussex, England did with milk to be kept overnight before we had a fridge. She scalded it, ie. brought it to the boil and then immediately poured it into a jug, which she covered and put in the larder. In the morning there was competition to see who had the skin of the milk on their cereal. This was, of course, a thin layer of clotted cream, and had a distinct flavour that told you it had been scalded. Clotted cream was devised to preserve it without a fridge. Apparently the process arrived in the West Country via Phoenician traders from what is now the Lebanon, where it is also still known. When we used to go on holiday in the West Country, it was possible to buy clotted cream from farmers who had it in huge eathernware bowls, and it had a similar flavour. Modern clotted cream is prepared by heating the pasteurised cream in the plastic pots in which it is sold. It is nice, but lacks that flavour. I usually make it (when I do) by getting Channel Islands* milk, stirring in some extra Channel Islands cream, and then heating it on a waterbath on the stove top. I think I will try the slow setting on my oven after reading this.*This is milk from Jersey or Guernsey cows, not from the islands themselves.

I’m from Devon, and learned how to make clotted cream from my grandmother, and have a couple of suggestions to make. Firstly, ideally you should make clotted cream with a high-fat unpasturised milk, not with cream – although this might be difficult to get hold of in the US. Second, you shouldn’t boil the milk/cream – you want to scald it at between 80 and 90 degrees Centigrade. We scoop the clots off the milk/cream as it cools and leave it in a shallow tray to cool for several hours. The cream in the pictures looks a bit too white to me (and the white stuff in jars in the link looks like it’s made by someone who has never seen the real thing – I’m not sure if they will ship abroad due to import regulations, but if so try http://www.langagefarm.com/cream-by-post.htm). Ideally you should have a golden buttery yellow colour and consistency of soft butter with a darker yellow crust on top. In Devon we serve it in place of butter on scones with jam on top.

I am crazy about cream teas and unfortunately the little glass pots of Double Devon do not do it for me. I am unbelievably excited for at this moment my cream is at the 8 hour mark! I live in Canada so it’s very difficult to find just pasteurized cream let alone a higher fat content. I ended up making a short trip across the border to pick up some 40% heavy whipping cream. My mother and I are crazy little anglophiles and will most definitely be enjoying this atop delicious scones with jam while watching some wondering British TV. Just lovely. Thanks for the great recipe and gorgeous photos documenting the process.

Please note Cornish Clotted Cream is nothing Like Devon Clotted Cream, The Cornish Clotted Cream is very rich. Hear os a web site you may be intrested in.. http://www.roddas.co.ukMy partner and I are looking into making Cornish Clotted Cream so stay tuned for more up dates A Cornishman in the USA

I actually have access to milk from Devon cows from a local farm. It is raw milk. I let the milk sit in a bowl for a couple of days and then skim off the cream on top. I usually make butter and buttermilk from that but decided to just use the cream as clotted cream. I made scones and used the cream with homemade mango preserves. Absoultely fabulous! Good thing I ran out of scones!

The old fashioned and traditional way to make clotted cream is to scald it. Having made a great deal of it, ( 40 trays of 20 lbs at a time), to get your traditional taste it needs to be made in a metal dish that is floating on boiling water. I will confess that in the dairy we always used double cream that had a butterfat content of 48%. This method would mean that you don`t need to measure, only make as much or as little as you require. To reiterate..you need a metal pan that will float, preferably two inches deep. Fill the pan about 3/4 full with double cream. Make sure that the vessel with the boiling water is big enough to fit your floating pan. When you are ready to start cooking, float the pan on the boiling water. Using a temperature probe, keep checking the cream temperature, in the middle and about half depth. When the temperature is at 83c(200f) remove the floating pan and leave to cool. When it is cool enough refrigerate, put it in a fridge and cool to less than 5c. If you can keep it covered and at less than 5c, it should keep for about a week. Scalding to 83c will pasteurise the cream and do remember not to stir the cream whilst cooking. Good luck in finding cream that is as near to 40% butterfat or higher. This method should drastically reduce the cooking time.

I bought “Heavy Cream” And whipped it until it was nice and thick. I spooned it into a pyrex casserole dish (only thing i had) and the mixture was about 1 inch high in the dish. After around 8 hours it was completely liquid, with some curdly stuff on top. It looked disgusting so I dumped it down the sink. Should I get the results described above if I whip my own cream? What could I have done wrong????

Don’t whip the heavy cream. Just pour it straight from the carton/bottle into a casserole dish or other container and set it in your oven at 180F with a lid on it. After about 8 hours a lumpy yellow crust should form on top. This may look not too appetizing but that is exactly what you want. It tastes divine! I used 2 pints and it took my cream 11 or 12 hours to form enough of the yellow crust (usually covers the whole top of the cream). Then you take it out, let it cool to room temperature (takes mine about an hour) and then shove it in your fridge. Do NOT mix the skin-like layer on top with the liquid cream on the bottom. After about 8 hours, take it out of the fridge and use a spatula or spoon to skim the crusty yellow skin off the top. There’s your clotted cream!

Gosh, I feel sorry for you guys not having clotted cream on hand whenever you fancy it! I grew up in Devon, England where clotted cream is on sale in all the supermarkets, farm shops etc. We would not only have it on scones with strawberry jam (jelly???) but also on pies and puddings, ON ice cream, IN ice cream, on its own with fruit etc etc etc. The possibilities are endless! Locals to the South West of England would also have it on thick door stops of white bread, spread thickly like butter with a sprinkle of sugar on top. Delicious!!! Sadly I have now moved away from the homeland to the North of ENglad and clotted cream is much more difficult to come by, hence looking for a recipe to make my own!

Rachelle x

PS – The yellow crust is the best bit but the runny white bit is good too, and when having it on scones, spread the cream first then dollop the jam on top. This is the Devon way! The Cornish do it the other way round which is just wrong (and causes arguments between Devonians and those pesky Cornish!)

A simplar quick recipe if you dont have a lot of time would be the recipe I came across in the Joy of Baking website:Recipe:4 ounces mascarpone1 cup (240 ml) heavy whipping cream 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract1 or 2 tablespoons granulated white sugar Zest of lemon or lime (optionalPlace all the ingredients in a large bowl and beat until the mixture holds its shape and looks like softly whipped cream. Use right away or cover and refrigerate the cream until serving time.Makes about 1 1/2 cups. Preparation time 15 minutes.

Thanks for the recipe! Unlike some other lucky commenters, my attempt with a crock pot + ultra-pasteurized was in vain. I finally found a lightly VAT-past., non-homogenized organic, 100% pure dairy brand to work with, so I’ll give that a shot tonight. (StL is my hometown, and I now live in CoMO, but even that 2-hr distance seems to be enough to make Pevely not a readily-available option.)

Have you tried Global Foods in Kirkwood? They almost certainly have at least one or two shelf-stable clotted cream choices, but there are also a few refrigerated sections with some foreign-looking dairy specialties, so it might be worth a shot to see if they carry fresher premade options to compare to your homemade results. (Actually, I’m sure the homemade stuff is great regardless, but I’ll personally use any excuse to go international-foods-shopping. Science!)

ps, it was only at this page, after browsing several of your other recipes via Pinterest, that I realized you were in StL! I’m definitely a skimmer, and neither “The London Tea Room” nor the actual words “St Louis” at the start of the post caught my eye. It was “Pevely” that jumped out and made me do a double-take, then a tiny happy dance.

This is the best recipe I’ve seen online so far! Thanks for the great pictures and for everyone’s follow-up comments. It makes a big difference to have a visual of the end product in mind. Just finished my first batch, which turned out well but a bit different than expected. I’ll be trying it with scones and jam in the next day or two.

The clotted cream layer on my batch was much dryer than I expected, like store-bought mascarpone or philly cream cheese. Stef’s pictures show the clotted cream has a runniness to it, like warm butter or mayo. Also, mine has a very faint tan color and smells and tastes very faintly of browned butter (a good flavour IMHO). Stef’s picture shows bright white clotted cream. Underneath the clotted layer I found what looked like and smelled like cooked skim milk (slightly gray/tan). Did I leave it in the oven too long?

What I found confusing about the process:— A thin skin does form on top of the cream while warming in the over, but it may appear like no thick layer of clotted cream has formed. I’m not sure how Stef got that layer to form in the over, but it never happened for me, even after 12 hours in the oven. However, a solid layer did form after another 10 hours in the fridge. — The skin on my cream was a light caramel color, not yellow. I think I left my batch in too long while waiting for yellow to appear, hence the cooked-milk flavor.

Hello – for those of you that may be confused about the Indians discussing Malai versus Clotted Cream…

Both Malai and Clotted cream are milk fat.

There is some difference in consistency and taste between Malai and Clotted cream.

The process of obtaining Malai and Clotted cream are different.

Malai cannot be obtained from pasteurizes milk because the fat is so finely dispersed that it does not separate. The film on pasteurized boiled milk is not the same as Clotted cream or Malai. This is why the recipes for clotted cream calls for heavy cream.

Malai is fat that rises to the top when non-pasteurized milk from the cow or buffalow in India is boiled and cooled prior to use.

To all the native Indians that love Malai, clotted cream is a great substitute, but if you were lucky enough to own a cow or had a source that provided unadultrated milk, you know what I am talking about.

This clarification is not a downgrading of clotted cream for I will be attempting to make it myself. I do not crave Malai, but occasionally do miss it!

I think you are confusing pateurized with homogenized. Pateurizing means heating the milk or cream in order to kill pathogens and prolong shelf life. Homogenized milk is processed to make the milk fat evenly dispersed throughout the liquid and prevent it from separating into a cream layer.

Oh my goodness, I was thrilled to find this recipe! I went to Fortnum & Mason for afternoon tea while in London in December, and have been craving clotted cream ever since! fichsjello, you are so right about scones here in the US being much sweeter than those in the UK. I think I will have to make them myself to get them that way. Haven’t tried making the clotted cram yet, but I am going to save this recipe. Thanks so much for posting it!

I spent a day pouring it through a coffee fiter per FN. Nothing. Did this number last night with a quart, and BAM, a cup and 1/2 of good solid cream. Making scones tomorrow. Son coming home from honors high school for a week. Turned into a tea junkie there, but he will be surprised this weekend. Making chocolate ice cream with the rest of the liquid and some good whole milk. Can anyone say, “screw the diet, momentarily.”

I read this post before and want to try the clotted cream. Previously found a post were someone had taken the bottom of the clotted cream and re-baked it and got additional cream. Can someone confirm that? I couldn’t find it this time. Seems a shame to throw that away if you can use it to make additional clotted cream. I thought someone had posted here that they made their scones the night before and froze them. Would like to get their recipe or if anyone has ever frozen their scones. How did they compair when thawed to the fresh baked? I found this scone recipe from Mad Hungry Lucinda Scala Quinn via http://www.marthastewart.com/349992/not-your-coffee-shop scones. I have made the scones twice and everyone loves them. When will I make them again? You can watch Lucinda’s 2010 Holiday show and how she made her scones for a Christmas brunch along with additional recipes. Thanks for sharing

I have spent a total of 6 months in the past year and a half on a British cruise ship. My favorite question to ask the British/Australian/New Zealand women was “Do you know how to make clotted cream?”. To my surprise, not one of them knew, but told me that they bought it ready made. Now I am thrilled to find out how easy it is to make it, and will be doing so!

I recently went to London, and feel in LOVE with Clotted Cream. I used this recipe, but sadly could not find non ultra pasteurized cream anywhere! Turns out it is illegal to sell it in California! I ended up using ultra pasteurized….it tastes the same as the stuff from london….but has a completely different texture

I found out recently, on Food52.com I think, that most baking powder has aluminum, which is what you taste, but you can buy Rumford aluminum-free baking powder (Kroger has it). So why didn’t I ever know this before? Live and learn. Rumford seems to work just fine and I don’t worry about that aluminum taste anymore.

I live on a dairy farm…we pasteurize our own milk and use it. We pasteurize in a silver ‘bucket’ home pasteurizer. When it is done we cool the milk down by running cold water through the pasteurizer and then put the bucket in the refrigerator to cool completely. When it is all done the cream settles on the top. We get a VERY thick and spreadable cream on the very top. Is this clotted cream?? We also get the thicker ‘whipping cream’ under that…then the milk. I would really like to know if someone has a clue, if this can be classified as clotted cream. The milk is heated, then cooled, then we scrape the cream off the top to just use it in cooking, or making butter, or whatever.

No thats all just cream lol…the top of the cream is always way thicker then even the under layer of cream because thats just how it rolls lol. Really the top thick thick part would be the best to make clotted cream out of, it just needs to cook longer, the lower layer of cream is closer to like half & half from my experience but it can also be used to make clotted cream since it has a very high fat content still….basically if you can make butter out of it you should be able to make clotted cream from it.

Help!!! I did this last night on my lowest oven setting of Warm, and when I took it out this morning it was bubbling, like a little boil…. is it ruined? It also had some patches that look burnt… can I remove those and use the rest, or is this batch ruined?

Mmm……my flatmate and I are rather obsessed with British/Celtic foods and we discovered a food store in Erie, Pennsylvania sells clotted cream in the international section. Lemon curd and clotted cream on pancakes with Yorkshire tea is truly an amazing combination for breakfast.

I made butter for a potluck dinner a few weeks ago and thought I had accidentally made clotted cream when the cream was at the stage right before the butter separates from the buttermilk.

Also, if you microwave the clotted cream first, it becomes quite spreadable.

Thank you so much for the recipe! I left the whipping cream in the oven on warm for 11 hours and a layer had formed on top but it was still really runny. Since I was running late to work and the dish was too hot to put in the fridge I turned the oven off and left the cream in there intending to call my mom from work to put it in the fridge when it cooled off. Of course I forgot and when I got home 9 hours later, the cream had clotted beautifully. After putting the dish in the refrigerator for a few hours I’d say about 90% of the cream clotted with very little liquid left over. It had a much more buttery sweetness than the Luxury English Clotted cream that I’d purchased.

This is from the MilkDelight.com Web site (verbatim): “Clotted cream is also an important part of cream tea, plopping a dollop or two into a cup of tea, and cream tea is often the drink preferred with scones and jam.” :-0Please tell everyone that this is NOT TRUE!!! Clotted cream goes on the scones and definitely NOT in the tea!:-)

Ugh, silly MilkDelight! Cream does not go into tea!!! So gross! Regular cream is too heavy that it masks the flavour of the tea, I can’t imagine clotted cream in tea. Cream is for coffee. MILK is for tea. Milk is much lighter and will allow the subtle flavours of the tea to come through. This info comes straight from a tea sommelier.

It really depends on your slow cooker. I tried doing mine overnight and it just burned the cream–even on low, it just got too hot. Some people report success with it though. If you want to try it, I would recommend doing it when you can keep an eye on it or check that it doesn’t go above 180 F. The oven method, using fancy local cream, not ultra pasteurized, has worked for me.

Just saw this on Pinterest. I love this post! I adore clotted cream, with scones and jam – my best memories from England. But it’s sooo expensive. This is a really easy and much cheaper alternative, and if you say that it even tastes better, then it must be perfect! I am definitely trying it! Thank you for the great idea!

it is. i was going to write the same post here today but you beat me to it by an year almost. clotted cream is just cream separated from full cream milk.its a staple in our house every morning with bread and i am a fan of malai (or clotted cream) since i was a child. if people followed this method they would save a lot of electricity and money. boil the milk at nite. get cream in the morning! :)

I found a farm that has unpasturized whole milk from Jersey cows. How much clotted cream should I get from a gallon of milk? I’m having a tea party for 31 people in a few days and think I will probably need 8 cups of clotted cream

180F is a low temperature and once the oven has heated up, it takes very little power to keep it there. It is much cheaper to make clotted cream like this than buying it in bulk – especially if you’re buying imported stuff in tiny glass jars.

Found this site whilst looking for another recipe. So interesting! Can’t wait to try to make it when I get back to the UK. In the meantime, here’s a link for British food products including clotted cream: http://www.englishteastore.com/british-store-cream-tea.html?gclid=CIKk7pbmvbECFcUZQgodKUoAEAIf you’re like me (lots of intention…equal amount of disappointment with my concoctions), maybe this onsite resource will suit. Thanks for all the good suggestions for making at home!

Just a comment (though someone else may have covered this): the way to remember the difference between a cream tea and high tea is to remember that “high” does not refer to class; it implies that it’s high time we had something to eat. (Thanks to Miss Manners, by the way, for this mnemonic.)

Nope! High refers to the table at which it is eaten. A low table (coffee table, garden table, etc) was were ladies would enjoy their afternoon tea. High tea was a higher table like a dinner table that the working class would have their tea on when they came home from work.

Did a little research and both ppl who posted about slow cooker temps are correct. Older, pre-2000 slow cookers, the low and high will end up around 209 degrees F. The difference b/w low and high is not the temperature, but the time it takes to get there (so the low will get get to 209 in 8 hours and the high will get to 209 in 4 hours, something like that).

Starting in 2000, it seems the industry ppl decided 209 was not high enough to kill off microbes and such and then really upped the temperatures so that both low and high were above boiling point (212) – not sure if the high gets up to 300 but I guess it’s possible if you start at 212 and cook for 8 hours. If you do a search for “slow cooker/crockpot temperatures” you can see that people start complaining about how their NEW slow cookers are overcooking/boiling everything.

Just started my first batch of clotted cream in a (thankfully old) slow cooker I found in my parents’ pantry and dusted off. Hope this info is helpful to someone else (since I read through this page and many others to figure out how to make clotted cream!

The whole thing is to reduce the amount of moisture in the cream to make it really really thick.When I lived in Devon, UK, my aunt had dairy farm and they would separate the milk from the cream. She would make clotted cream one of two ways.She would place the cream into shallow trays and leave in the dairy for a few days (this was England and the temperatures in Devon are perfect for this) and the cream would thicken.If she wanted to make it quicker, she would ‘scald’ it by putting it into a saucepan and heating till it boiled then putting it into a shallow bowl where it would thicken overnight. Scalding it gives the clotted cream a metalic tang, which isn’t unpleasant just different to the other way of making clotted cream. Unfortunately I live in Australia where clotted cream is extremely hard to buy, due to extraordinarily stringent food laws, but it is such a joy to make my own. Mmmmmmmmm

My daughter wanted to do a tea party theme for her 5th Birthday, because we go to a few local tea houses in NJ for birthdays and mothers day. (NOTE: NJ tea houses are nothing like the ones in UK which I’ve been in before.) And I think this will be an easy thing to make for the 15 girls coming over to have ‘tea’ :) Also going to cook your scone recipe Can’t wait!

The recipe worked out great for me, but at first I thought it wasn’t working. I used 40% fat pasturized (not ultra pasturized) cream. My oven goes down to 170, so I used that. After 12 hours, I expected to see a thick firm layer like what is shown in the picture above (the one with the rubber spatula). When I put a rubber spatula at the edge of the pot, there was no thick firm layer, although the cream did seem like it thickened a little bit. It wasn’t very yellow on top either, certainly not “crusty”. I let it go another 2 hours. It was more yellow, but it still wasn’t firm and thick or “crusty”. I decided that it must need the chilling in the refrigerator to firm up. I let it cool a couple hours in the oven and placed the pot in the fridge. The next morning, I did have a thick, very firm layer which was yellow on top and very creamy colored underneath. I ran a knife around the edge of the pot to loosen the layer and used a skimmer to lift it off the rest of the cream. I placed it on a plate as it was so stiff, I didn’t think it would go in a bowl without making a mess. I then cut it up and packed it in a few small sterilized jars.I left one jar out to soften a little and made a batch of scones, and put the others back in the fridge.My wife and I put lemon curd and the clotted cream on some English style scones. It was so good! It definitely takes a while to make, but the actual time you spend working is very small. It is definitely worth the effort.

We couldn’t find unpasteurized or regular pasteurized cream (the same experience as some of the other commenters) so we were forced to use ultra-pasteurized. Here’s what worked for us:

1) Cooking the cream at 180 degrees for 10 hours. At this point, the cream had at most a very thin scum on top.2) Taking the lid off the pot and cooking it at 180 degrees for an additional 2 hours. After this, the cream developed more of a top layer, but it still was pretty thin.3) Refrigerating for 8 hours. At the end of that, there was a hard layer on top that we skimmed off and that made an excellent clotted cream. It passed the test of a true Brit as well.

I just made some using ultra-pasturized cream, and it worked just fine! Two cups took about 9 hours in my oven at 180 degrees. Didn’t have a metal pan, so I used a pyrex bow covered with foil, and left it covered the whole time. Like John said, the skin was very thin at first. But after refrigerating it overnight, I got a good amount of clotted cream off of it, more than I expected from the original skin.

I am not sure you are right as clotted cream is baked and has a crust form on top. When I was a child milk used to be delivered in bottles. It typically had a layer of cream on top which is what you seem to be describing. The top of the milk cream is lovely and creamy and good over breakfast cereal but it does not taste the same as clotted cream.

I am a Pakistani grew up in England and living in USA for the past 30 years. So I have fond memories of clotted cream in Pakistan (correctly defined by my Indian friends as “balai”). I have had both. To my British friend: Remember the English were in India for 400 years, and I am sure they “borrowed” a few things. If you can find an Amish farm buy the milk with the un-reduced cream boil it and let it simmer, cool and place in fridge or buy the clotted creamfrom from Whole foods. Thanks for all the wonderful posts, I am always open to shortcuts.

One poster said they used a water bath in a pot on the stove and it all thickened. I’m wondering if you set up your crock pot as a water bath with a jar of milk/cream in it, would that work also? I’d rather not leave stove on all day or night, but the slow cooker is self contained and made for that sort of thing…

Hi Swati,I am originally from India. I moved to the USA about 10 years back. The milk we get here in the USA is homogenized, which means it is churned well and passed thru fine seive/mesh before packaging. This process breaks the milk particles, and we never get “malai” here, even if we boil the milk. The only way to get malai on the milk is to buy non-homogenized milk. Also, I have tasted clotted cream/Devonshire cream when I was in London. It doesn’t resemble malai, and it doesn’t taste like malai. The closest it looks/taste like is “makhhan”.

Yummy! We have this here in Brazil, but we call “Nata”. Our is like a really heavy cream whipped almost turn into butter, but a little bit less greasy. Is also softer than butter.We use for topping cakes (old school way) and “sonhos”… “sonhos de nata” are the best thing ever! Is like a doughnut, but without a hole and filled with a lot of clotted cream :)

Funny story: We don’t have buttermilk here. I have no idea what buttermilk looks like. Sad. HAHA

If you have butter there, you should have buttermilk lol. Traditional buttermilk is what left over after you make butter. In the US we also have commercial buttermilk which is made with bacteria. There is also Acidified buttermilk, which you make at home. You take one cup of whole fat milk and mix in 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice then leave it sit on the counter for 10 minutes.

There is a food product in Middle Eastern cooking called “qashta” that is made by skimming off the thickened layer from simmering milk. It sounds like it might be similar to “malai”. That being said, while it is tasty, “qashta” does not taste like clotted cream. It is much less fatty.

Thanks for this post! It is impossible to find cream that is not ultra pasteurized at the four grocery stores near me, so I just bought it and tried it out. Your warning scared my so much that I looked up what would happen. Someone suggested using 1/4 cup buttermilk to every 2 cups cream. I didn’t have buttermilk, so I made some with milk and vinegar and added it to the cream after letting it sit. It worked wonderfully!

This recipe with buttermilk worked great for me – even better than when I used pasteurized cream. My first try I had to make the buttermilk with lemon juice. I am trying your suggestion again with store bought cultured buttermilk and ultra-pasteurized heavy cream. I was able to find the pasteurized cream at Whole Foods, the 365 brand. Also, Organic Valley and Natural by Nature offer a pasteurized heavy cream. If you can locate an UNFI food distributer in your area you may be able to purchase both at wholesale. Thanks for your suggestion.

When I was little (about 1950) I would have oatmeal with cream at my grandmother’s ranch. When they separated the cream from the milk and bottled it the top of the cream in the top of the bottle was so thick it had to be spooned out. Very much how I picture clotted cream. I think I will have to try this recipe. Sounds delicious.

Well, I tried this recipe putting 4 cups of pasteurized (not ultra) heavy cream into a large dutch oven and heating it for 10 hours at 180 degrees. It did form a layer at the top, but it seems to have come out a kind of golden brown color, like light toast. I’m not sure this is right. Is it ruined and if so, what did I do wrong?

Did you remember to refrigerate it overnight after you removed it from the oven? It’s supposed to form a light yellow crust (this stuff is DELICIOUS!) and not a brown one… and thickens up to a spreadable consistency after it’s been refrigerated.

Update. Having tried to skim the scum off the cream I can now authoritatively say, yes, it *was* ruined. It turned to butter, not clotted cream. I’m pretty sure it was because 10 hours was simply too long (or maybe 180 was too high). Either way, it was too much. I may try this again at a lower temp for a shorter time, but word to the warning: It’s a good idea to keep a close watch on the cooking process until you know how your oven handles this.

My mother had a milk cow when I was a little girl. She would put the milk in the refrigerator and a thick layer of cream would rise to the top. We would scoop it off and put it on our biscuits. Sometimes Mother would collect it and we would churn butter from it. Is that what you are calling clotted cream or would you still cook it a little?

You cannot make clotted dream from milk – that would be clotted milk? When it says clotted cream it describes exactly what it is “Clotted Cream” Full milk is 3.25% Milk fat content and has only traces of cream as the milk processors have extracted the cream which is the valuable part. As for the origin of the recipe or method, I could not find any evidence that anybody claimed UK rights to it as I am am sure it has been around for centuries. Having said that it is well known that it has been made at least as early as the Fifteenth Century (evidenced by Formulary books) so we all know where it did not originate. Dinkum?

You are wrong. If you are talking about Full milk from the udder, then it is possible but wasteful. You will be left with only a small yield of clotted cream and lots of leftover spoiled milk that has had all the minerals and vitamins destroyed by the prolonged exposure to the naturally contained Lactic acid in the milk. Milk is just what is says it is MILK. You cannot clot milk or milk fat into “Clotted Cream” miraculously. All the old and new food science books recommend clotting the cream by heating separated cream with high fat content 40%.Clotted dream has been made as early as the fifteenth century and it might not be clear who can lay claim to the process but so we all know where it did not originate from.

So, here we are almost a year later in the middle of the Dutchlands happy to announce that we have evolved and added the oven to our cooking methods. Now it’s time for the Brits to learn how to cook above the stove. I think as soon as you taste the baking powder you might have just used too much. Even a few grams too many can ruin the entire flavor experience. Did you find a solution? You could also try making the baking powder react with a few drops of vinegar before using.

I tried this the other day(with regular pasteurized whipping cream by Lucerne instead of heavy whipping cream) and it worked beautifully! I used a quart of whipping cream and was left with one full 16oz jar of clotted cream and another half-quart of cream left over(which I will use to bake scones).Thanks!

It is definitely not an economical of ecologic hobby. 12 hours in an oven or on a stove?

American fuelprices must be quite different to the Dutch, but the sheer thought of using so much gaz or electricity for making a pot of cream… quite dazzles me.

Not that ik don’t like clotted cream, its yummy!

And whats that comment about ovens just making it into the Dutch kitchen? My mother (late 80’s) and her peergroup have had ovens all their lifes and they used it too. The kitchen in my mothers old folkshome even has 2 ovens, one of which is a microwave. Bit overdone, though:-)

Looking for a clotted cream recipe for a friend from Cambridge, and a niece’s plans for a “tea party” to celebrate her brother’s engagement. This and one other were the only ones I found that seemed “legit”, and didn’t involve blending marscapone with whipping cream, or such.

It turned out great! Didn’t seem to clot much after 12 hr at 180, but after refrigerating, fully half the warmed cream was clotted. Similar to one post above, I may have done it too long as the clotted cream was quite firm, but the other post indicated adding liquid back to get the right consistency. That worked perfectly! It’s spreadable and creamy, and was a big hit.

Anyone having difficulty finding non-ultra-pasteurized cream – check out Organic Valley in the the Midwest. I used their simple “pasteurized” heavy cream to great result. Very fun!

I have made this four times now as I give quite a few teas. I really think all ovens are not the same. My cream came out the best (I used Trader Joe’ s heavy whipping cream not ultra pasteurized. I used 4 cups in a heavy pot covered for 180 for 8 1/2 hours.

I think the strangest part of this and the most confusing is that even after 8 hrs, yes, it had formed a “crust” but still did not see too firm. Relax, follow the directions. let come to room temp. and refridgerate. the next day it’s like magic! Almost too firm! In fact, the last time I beat it a bit and added some of the liquid. Came out great! I also found, just like butter, it is best set out awhile to soften as it spreads so much better.

I have a question. How can I can this. I tried putting it in sterilized jar right out of the over, but when cooled and put in fridge. it all separated. question if anyone has tried this.

1. At what point do I put this in jars
2. Do I need to water bath, if so how long.
3 What is the shelf life? The jars from England are for a real long time.
4 Being this isn’t hard I would like to make a lot (might as well do a couple of pots) and can them. Any ideas out there. Please complete instructions from start to finish. Thanks

I made this recipe yesterday and it seemed to turn out the way it was supposed to. My regular oven’s lowest setting is 200° F so I used a convection oven at 180° F. The dish I used was a CorningWare casserole dish with handles and a glass lid. I cooked two pints of Ultra pasteurized heavy whipping cream (only kind I could find) for about 8 hours. A yellow crust had formed, but wasn’t particularly hard or thick. After turning off the oven I left the cream to cool for about 2 hours. I then placed it in the refrigerator and didn’t remove it until 13 hours later. I could have removed it sooner, but thirteen hours worked best for my schedule. The crust had definitely hardened and was a brighter yellow. I was surprised, though at how the liquid underneath seeped up through and around the crust. The amount of cream underneath the crust was kind of small, but definitely cream. It was difficult to remove the crust with cream because it tended to float around. Is that normal? I ended up with about 1 and 1/4 cup of cream. The consistency is like soft butter; not particularly sweet, but a very fresh dairy/milk/cream flavor. If I used pasteurized or Non pasteurized heavy whipping cream would the flavor be richer? The amount of cream I got was maybe enough for 6 large scones. The cream was scrumptious with hot scones and strawberry jam.

Hi. Your point on the differences between ‘afternoon’, ‘cream’ and ‘high’ teas is incorrect. To clarify, afternoon (or ‘low’) tea is taken in the afternoon from the sofa/armchairs (hence the ‘low’) and consists of a selection of cakes/pastries, sandwiches, tea etc. A ‘cream tea’ is actually a scone with clotted cream, jam and a pot of tea without the other accompaniments. ‘High tea’ is taken at a dining table (hence the ‘high(er)’ seating position) and usually consists of sandwiches and cold meats and fish etc. I hope this helps.

dear lady
don’t know your name.. but I think that you’re a wizz making yourself this clotted cream.. I live in Ontario, Canada and so use Devon Clotted cream which comes in little glass jars.
I learned about clotted cream from my visit to english friends in Coventry, the Midlands, England in 1967.. then I immigrated to Canada where I had an English family in law.. There in the UK and from my former english family in law, I learned that what is served on the European continent and the US as High Tea IS in the UK just afternoon tea. High Tea is always a dinner.. then not too long ago, an English family and their son a first class cook, opened their own English tearoom and when one wants to have a high tea there, it has to be ordered a few days ahead of the day one wants to consume it there as it has to be prepared and they sit down with you as the client what it is you want in your English dinner which will always include a meat roast and yorkshire pudding.. The reason I post this, is because it looked as if you weren’t sure as to what a high tea actually IS.. and i learned it from my English friends and my former english family in law… by the way? your clotted cream? looks great.. now IF ONLY I could find unprocessed thick whipped cream! greetings from Canada, powderbrush

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I could not believe the number of comments over Clotted Cream!!! I loved your recipe and technique, as it comes the closest to how it was originally made. Had a tea catering company and that compelled me to read everything I could find on teas, its history and the components; ergo, true clotted cream. For the interested, a farmer/wife would select and raise one or more very particular dairy cows for the fat content in their milk. Most had wood-burning stoves and, now, aga’s (magical “cookers” — wish I could afford one!) and these now mostly run on gas with continuous heat. The heavy cream would be put into a copper pot and then held at a very low temperature on the top of the stove. Initially, it was scalded to kill the bacteria and then heated slowly over time. Whatever “clot” formed would be removed and that represented the best cream rising to the top.I am married to an Englishman and lived there for 10 years and this with true “queens scones” (the most common you will find served at tea) are sorely missed. I had serve pre-manufactured clotted cream at teas to conform to health laws and English was the top brand. Sommerdale did not make the grade with my clients and English comes true to the real taste back in England. By the way, THANK YOU for edifying everyone as to what a true definition is for the “High” tea! Somehow, it gives an aire of elegance and snobbery to the concept of an Afternoon Tea here among the “Yanks”, but could not be further from the truth! The Queen would NEVER serve that and allow it to be made public!

This isn’t a traditional method for English clotted cream although it’s similar. The cream shouldn’t be more than an inch deep in the dish and should have a large surface area. That is, put it in a large flat dish. When in the oven it should be left uncovered so that liquid can evaporate.
The big difference is the last stage. Traditionally the dish should be refrigerated as it is. Once chilled, the top solid layer should be mixed into the cream below. Clotted cream is made from the whole cream and you shouldn’t have any remaining cream to put in your baking!

I don’t believe I’ve ever had real clotted cream. I’ve been two tea houses in my life and I believe they had a mock Devonshire cream. I loved it and I wanted to recreate it. I came across this website and decided to try to make clotted cream. I only had access to Trader Joes pasteurize cream and I decided to put it in my all-clad slow cooker. I cooked it on warm for 8 hours. Then I put the slow cooker insert into the fridge over night. In the morning I found most of the the cream was thick and clotty. I wish I hadn’t dumped the little bit cream left because I think it would have mixed in well. The cream seems a little too thick. Being addicted to sugar it didn’t seem sweet enough to me so I added one and a half teaspoons sugar and I whipped it. It’s really yummy to me now :). it made about 1 Cup of clotted cream. I can’t wait to try it on scones with my sister today :) by the way I don’t care if you feel this is not Clotted cream :p

I tried making clotted cream in my crock pot yesterday. I tested it first with water and the temp never went over 176.5 degrees F so I decided to give it a try. I used organic grass fed minimally pasteurized heavy cream. I only had a pint so that is what I used. My crock pot is a 40 year old Munsey slow pot. The cream was about one inch deep in the bottom of the crock. After eight hours there was a darkish crust on top so I shut it off, let it cool for about four hours then put it in the fridge over night. I got about a cup of thickish off white cream that has a nice taste but was impossible to skim off from the crust on top so it is a bit lumpy with the bits of skin running through it. The crusty parts from the edge I picked out and saved for maybe putting in a quiche.There was no layer of whey. Next time I think I will rotate the crock in the base and cook it a shorter time because one side of it was very thick. The clotted cream I remember was very white and had no pieces of skin running through it but this does taste a bit like it. I will try it on a scone after I bake them.

Before coming to the USA I was manager of a factory in the west of England where we made traditional clotted crea
We cooked the cream in flat metal trays over a bath of boiling water. We started with 48% butterfat cream and cooked it until the volume was reduced by about 25%. The trays of cream would be chilled overnight and then the very thick crust would be skimmed off.
I make it at home using heavy whipping cream – ultra pasteurized works fine – and simmering uncovered it in a thick bottomed pan on the stovetop. I reduce the volume by evaporation by about 30 – 35% and then chill the cream.
This gives a very good yield of clotted cream. If you cook it covered you tend to get a much reduced yield.

Before coming to the USA I was manager of a factory in the west of England where we made traditional clotted cream
We cooked the cream in flat metal trays over a bath of boiling water. We started with 48% butterfat cream and cooked it until the volume was reduced by about 25%. The trays of cream would be chilled overnight and then the very thick crust would be skimmed off.
I make it at home using heavy whipping cream – ultra pasteurized works fine – and simmering uncovered it in a thick bottomed pan on the stovetop. I reduce the volume by evaporation by about 30 – 35% and then chill the cream.
This gives a very good yield of clotted cream. If you cook it covered you tend to get a much reduced yield.

Jeff Jay, I am going to try your method of making clotted cream first. Just wanted a bit more direction: do you stir the cream continuously while it is on the stovetop, how high is the heat, how long does your batch take and what volume do you make? Thank you for posting your comments.

I despair of ever finding non ultra-pasteurized cream, but if I do I am making this! DH is crazy about Devonshire cream. I did want to pass along a possible hint for the long cooking time. My range has a sabbath mode that will allow it to remain at temp for longer than 12 hours…thought that might help some folks out. Happy baking!

Trying it right now in an electric skillet because I can fine tune the temp. I will post the result. I put about 2-1/2 cups of cream (ultra pasteurized because that’s all I have) in to my round electric skillet and it is about half and inch deep. I set the temp below 150, because it is as close as I can come to a simmer that doesn’t boil, but still keeps a tiny bubbling process going and evaporates the moisture from the cream. I am aiming to reduce it by 25-20% as was mentioned above. Then I will chill it. It’s only been about 10 or 15 minutes but there is already a thin layer on top, reduced, evaporated skin type layer and just as an experiment I skimmed it off and put it in the fridge. It tastes yummy. The rest I will allow to reduce farther and let more of a skin develop ( I am guessing this alters the taste) and I will chill that. I will let you know :)

Has anyone had to wait more than 12 hours for the skin to form? My batch is currently going into the 16th hour and has only a very, very thin skin which only partially covers the surface on top. I would get only a couple of small spoonfuls if I took it out now. Should I just keep waiting, or does it become unsafe after a certain point?

My cream is pasteurized (not unpasteurized or ultra-pasteurized), it fills the ceramic container a little over 1 inch deep, it has been covered. It was 4 cups’ worth of heavy cream. Should I increase the temperature? Take the lid off?

This is an old thread and maybe no one is replying to these, but I have had the same experience as Kathy. I put a pint of low temp pasteurized heavy whipping cream from Whole Foods into a covered SS pan for over 20 hours at 180 deg F and the thin skin on the surface doesn’t even cover the surface 4.5″ in diameter. I’m putting it in the frig, but I was expecting a thicker mat of fat on the top of the cream.

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High tea is a formal supper served in England usually between 5-7:00 PM. I believe you are thinking of afternoon tea. Afternoon tea is cream tea usually served with pastries, cakes and tarts. It is usually served from 1-3PM. They are quite different. Many Americans mistake the two.

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I see this is an older article, but I recently came upon it. I’ve missed clotted cream so much. I guess I didn’t know it was so easy to make. Not finding it anywhere near me here in America I decided to give it a try. I am far from being an efficient baker/chef. But this was super easy and turned out so delicious!!
Instead of a sauce pan I used a corningwear casserole dish. 11.5 hrs in the oven, an hour to get it to room temperature, and a good overnight in the fridge. The wait was worth it!!!
To those who are wondering, you can tell the difference from where the cream ends and the “half and half” type leftovers begin. It looks almost like milky water underneath the cream. Thank you so much for posting this recipe!! I love it!!

I am fortunate enough to get fresh raw Jersey and Guernsey cream from a local farmer, $5/quart. I have always made clotted cream by taking unpasteurized, raw cream and letting it stand at 70-75F for 6-8 hours. Then place the cream in a heavy bottomed pot over very low heat (do not boil) until rings form on the surface of the cream. Transfer to a pan with large surface area, like 9×12 as opposed to a deep bowl and chill for at least 12 hours; then skim the thick clotted cream from the surface, it looks like a skin. The residual cream is excellent in baking and smoothies. Enjoy.
When I do not have raw cream I actually culture the cream with milk kefir grains or even 1tbsp grocery store milk kefir per cup of cream, room temp for 12 hours…and then just start at the step in the raw process where you place the cream over low heat and finish the steps.

The reason raw cream can sit out on the counter while pasteurized cream needs to be cultured whilst out on the counter is because the raw cream is utilizing its natural microscopes and will start clabbering or fermenting aka culturing once it warms up. The pasteurized cream would be unsafe if left at room temp, bad bacteria would start to grow, so with cultures on board from the milk kefir you are getting it ready for the clotting phase, when heat is used. If you know how to turn your pasteurized cream into yogurt, you can indeed do that and then follow the heat steps. Try out various methods, no need to ever pay $8 for a few ounces of commercial mass produced clotted cream again.

I feel I have to write to correct the false information about High tea. Afternoon tea consists of tea, cakes and/ or scones, with butter cream and jam (jelly for all those Americans among us). It is usual to have it at 3-4pm. Children may be present for this meal. Cream tea always includes tea, with scones and jam with cream, traditionally clotted cream, but sometimes whipped cream. High tea is not a blue collar worker’s meal at all. It consists of tea, a variety of sandwiches, often quiche (egg flan) and sausage rolls, (savoury pastries) possibly crisps (potato chips), with cakes and scones (either with or without cream). There may be biscuits or trifle as well. Cold cuts, hardboiled eggs and an undressed garden salad would also be suitable offerings for a high tea. It is taken at 5pm and is considered suitable for children. Traditionally only older children would be present for dinner at 8pm as it would be too late for younger children to eat before bedtime. Most blue collar workers historically would have had only enough time and money for one evening meal, usually hot food often without a dessert or pudding. As they were not from the gentrified classes they would have had more freedom to bend the ‘rules’! Puddings are traditionally for dinner time at 8pm. Of course, although these are the traditions, many people eat the different versions of ‘Tea’ at a time to suit themselves. As an Englishwoman now residing in Australia I find that many Australians enjoy a cream tea at 11 am- the usual time for ‘Coffee’ or Elevenses’! :)

Thank you for sharing this wonderful recipe. I used it this weekend and now we have wonderfully fresh clotted cream for half the price. My husband was a little skeptical about me making clotted cream at home but now his respect for my culinary skills has reached a new high. :))

I also read your bio. Good for you for finding your passion and being able to support your family doing it! Enjoy life!

Thanks for this! My hubby is from London and we have a hard time getting actual clotted cream. Most import places sell double cream, which isn’t quite the same. Fortunately, I can get low-pasteurized cream here in Tennessee.

I just dumped a some pasteurized cream that I had in my fridge for quite awhile. It had a thick layer on top. So I tasted it and it was good! So I was curious, could I have used it like clotted cream? It wasn’t at all sour.

I give our cat a very small bowl of heavy cream in the morning. One day she didn’t drink any and when I looked at it that night, the solids had risen to the top of the bowl. It was thick and yellow. I tasted a tiny bit of it and, voila! It was clotted cream! That’s what sent me to this site immediately. Having just come back from England, I am craving some of that wonderful thick cream, and now I can make it myself. Thanks!

“high tea” is a hot cooked supper, like fish and chips, or curry, and the middle to lower classes in the UK refer to their evening meal as tea.
afternoon tea is the clotted cream/scones meal. thanks for the recipe, it looks fab.

Great correction on the high tea/afternoon tea issue. I would never trust having tea in a place that advertises high tea as being afternoon tea. An interesting side note, the British will refer to dinner as “tea” which is short of high tea. It got me confused when I first moved there!